Is THIS Sports Journalism?!

       Why does the L.A. Times sports page allow a Dodgers story,  appearing the morning after a game, to be so far afield from what the reader mainly wants to know:  what the Dodgers did yesterday; I mean like, win or lose?

       Instead, what did we have today?  Headline:  "Ethier playing like old self."  Oh, Goodie.   Ethier must have been prominent in the team's win!  You could read lots in that article before it came near mentioning that the Dodgers lost!  The sub-sub head, in gray print, Colorado 5 Dodgers 4, could have been easily overlooked while you went on reading about Ethier.

       The story of the game (in disjunctive, not sequential, order), is a hard to read,  gray-backgrounded, side-bar on page 5.  The Ethier, but hardly Dodger, story began on page 1.

William Zinsser, 1922 - 2015

       William Zinsser has died.  He wrote and edited for a number of well regarded U.S. periodical publications, taught non-fiction writing in the English Department at Yale, and is perhaps best known for his book On Writing Well that came out in 1976 and is still valued in its several thoughtful revisions.

       Zinsser recently wrote a weekly blog for two years for American Scholar Magazine, hardly believing it when his first article received 16,000 hits. He thought he was absolutely wedded to paper but became an enthusiastic convert.

       Zinsser prized clarity. economy, and human warmth in writing.  Simplicity was a watchword for him.  He held that you should be grateful for every word that can be pruned:  "Clutter is the disease of American writing."   

     

When is a "mistake" almost right and nearly acceptable?!

       In an obituary today in the Los Angeles Times for the wonderful performance artist Rachel Rosenthal, the article tells us Rachel graduated from the High School of Music and Art in New York City and began to be friends with painters like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and joined the dance company headed by Merce Cunningham:


           "She was a dancer and fell in with an avant garde crowd at a time             of artistic fervent in the 1950s."


       Now a spell-check wouldn't catch the "fervent" as a mistake or misspelling because it's actually a word, and although it is an adjective when a noun is called for and "ferment" was no doubt intended, a churning, boiling time of artistic creativity is also clearly one where the artists are "fervent" about their art!  

"Mesmerizing"

       Just ran across the word again and realize how nice it is, I guess, to have a word coined out of your name.  Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th century medical doctor, was a visionary and began believing magnets could cure or help patients in some way.

       Then he thought he had some of those powers himself, and got people to do things through what he hardly recognized as hypnotism; hence mesmerism is broadly understood as the equivalent of hypnotism.  American Heritage Dictionary's Word History continues:


One of [Mesmer's] pupils, named Puyse´gur, then used the term mesmerism (first recorded in English in 1802) for Mesmer's practices.  The related word mesmerize (first recorded in English in 1829), having shed its reference to the hypnotic doctor, lives on in the sense "to enthrall."

"Modicum"

       So the word "modicum" occurred to me the other day, sounded a little small on the tongue, and, of course, why not, that's what it refers to, something little, tiny, small, diminished, a bit.

       But there are other words that can serve the same purpose, refer to similar size things:  iota, tad, tittle. . . just to start such a list.

       It's good to have a quantity of words at hand to choose from, then to settle on one that seems to fit best.

A Restaurant I would Gladly Patronize

       Daughter Elizabeth told me today, Mother's Day, she and Grandson Micah went to a favorite restaurant she's loved ever since she's lived in Tucson, an unpretentious, neighborhood kind of place where the food is good, the wait staff is longstanding, and both they and the customers seem just glad to be there.

       I was struck with the unshamefaced straightforwardness of the restaurant's motto, which Elizabeth snapped today and mailed me:

"Homeland"

       Wrote this essay closer to the time the word first became prominent in the country.  The muse and thoughts I had then still seem to me to be pertinent regarding this almost-taken-for-granted word now:


                                                HOMELAND

       The term “Homeland” as in “Homeland Security” has bothered some people, including me.  Others seem to accept it readily.

       It was apparently first used in an American government context by a 1997 document of the National Defense Panel, then as part of the two-word phrase in the first Hart/Rudman report on national security in 1999, but most notably to the general public in President Bush’s October 2001 creation of an Office of Homeland Security which has now received its Congressional imprimatur in November 2002.

      The term, perhaps for one old enough, resonates from World War II and Hitler’s Germany.  Naturally the sound of it is not favorable for somebody with that association.

       But it’s what the term does (and maybe what it did for Germany!) that bothers me most:  it makes us into an isolated patch of soil in which we are all rooted, apart from the rest of the world.

       What happens to the “homelands” to which most of us trace our ancestry, i.e., the now widely disparate countries that gave us or our forbears their birth?  Those countries are cut off from contributing to our culture and our identities as we float ever further from our peculiar, distinct, and diverse origins.

       WE are now the “homeland,” barricaded and armored away from the rest of humanity, thus giving the lie to our welcoming and immigrant-built country, subverting our very appeal to the world.

Language is a Great Mulch!

       I finished lecture #36, the final one in John McWhorter's "Great Course" The Story of Human Language on CD, my first real introduction to linguistics and a worthy one indeed.

       I'll share a couple little "food for thought" items as given in print form in the little book that accompanies and consolidates the fuller actual lectures:


       Ask traces back to an Old English word acsian, but despite how we feel about the pronunciation "aks" today, in Old English acsian was as common as ascian, casually written in formal documents.  As so often, our contemporary senses of what is "wrong" are abitrary--even literate English speakers once saw nothing amiss in the alternation between these words.

       About came from a case of the rebracketing that we saw create the word alone [originally "all one," time and use reduced it to "alone"].  At plus by plus out, pronounced together rapidly over time, became the single word about, just as God be with you became Goodbye.

       

       

       

       

More on "The Ballad of Beautiful Words"

       Why is the poetry in yesterday's post so readable, listenable?  So Euphonious?  Is it more the rhymes, more the rhythms, is it more the individual words and their sound/image value?  Is it just a list of nice words in a "ballad"?  WITHIN each line, what are the colors, the shifting differences even when the letters are all the same that begin words?  I think the poem a marvel.  The selection process itself must have been a feast, not to mention the piecing it all together in a seamless sound and rhythmic package, each stanza.

       I can't tell for sure who made the poem; this is one-third of it, but I can find it for you and send you to it.  It's at Issa's Untidy Hut, the Poetry Blog for Lilliput Review.  Scroll down till you come to "The Ballad of Beautiful Words."

from "The Ballad of Beautiful Words"

Amethyst, airy, drifting, dell.
    Oriole, lark, alone,
Columbine, kestrel, temple, bell,
    Madrigal, calm, condone.

Emerald, swallow, tawny, dawn
    Silvery, starling, lane,
Radiance, rosary, garland, fawn,
    Pastoral, valley, vane.

Saraband, arrow, huntsman’s horn,
    Orison, organ, bairn
Meadow, madonna, moorland, morn,
    Colony, carol, cairn.

Crinoline, crimson, crystal, croon,
    Troubadour, flagon, flown,
Caravan, amber, laurel, moon,
    Tamarind, tendon, tone.

Anchorage, archer, astral, own,
    Barnacle, billion, bay,
Channel, communion, island, moan,
    Carnival, castaway.

Chivalry, convoy, clamor, cling,
    Hurricane, highland, dream,
Journeyman, mariner, sailor, wing,
    Mandarin, tarn, redeem.

       (more in next post about this poem)

Brain on "hold."

       Restrained from much energetic exercise at the moment, it's hard to maintain animated vitality.  Keep wanting to take another nap.  Good for continued recovery from my hernia surgery but less so for the life of the blog.
   
       I rest, seek respite, reset, yawn, stare at the screen, nod off...to bed. 

      

"Empty Nesters"

       Seeing two birds flapping and fluttering under the eaves of our patio to a location somewhere in the patio this morning reminded me of the bird I saw the other day just beyond our patio pick up and sort of weigh and balance and consider a twig and then take it and fly in.

       That made me think (and today it was confirmed) there's a couple building a nest in our patio--and I saw it.   
  
       It's exciting!  But mainly it made me think how for granted we take our relationship with other sentient and wild beings that accompany us on the planet.

       Do we notice that we say, "Yeah, our kids have flown.  We're empty nesters now."  They're hardly metaphors!  Fellow creatures are how we know some things, and it's in our language.

"Welterweight"

       So it was a welterweight contest in Las Vegas last night.

       But what weight is it?    Obviously more than a"fly"and more than a "bantam."

       "Welterweight" is between lightweight and middle weight and comes in at between 135 and 147 pounds.

       I grew up on the heavyweight fights of such figures as Joe Lewis, "The Brown Bomber."  I suppose heavier guys are more capable of committing greater mayhem on their opponents.

      But what is a "welterweight"?  Probably the name came from "welt," raised portion of the skin that's been bruised, typically by a blow to it. 

Fortune Cookie?

       One of those little moments that takes you aback.

       Chinese dinner delivered to home.  Three Fortune Cookies.  Chose.


                 "You and your spouse will be happy in your life together."


       Wait a minute.  Well, yes, but what percent of pride do you want for your prediction when we're already in our eighties and been happily married for 58 years?

Cut from a Different Cloth

       Purchased new toaster today at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  I think I may have learned what the "Beyond" stands for when I read the directions that told me certain things I should do before starting to operate the toaster.  One of them was the following:


                    "Wipe the exterior with a damp sloth."


       I wonder if a sloth is damp most of the time; and also what a sloth might think of my using it in this way.  We usually figure a sloth is pretty lazy, but then it might take such use as a salve for its conscience.  It'd get the credit, but I'd be doing all the work!

"Saxophonist"

       As a kind of addendum on yesterday's "microscopist" entry, I have to say that the Brit's attempt especially to get us to say [sack-SAHPH-n-IST] for this word is a very similar case in point.  You've entirely lost the word "saxophone."

       At least Merriam-Webster tells us as Americans that the pronunciation for this word is [SACK-suh-PHONE-ist].  Brava! Bravo! from me for that one.  And if we can come off our high horses (never the British, of course) for this one, why not for the other and make the word [MY-kruh-SKOHP-ist]!!!

       We tend to want to emulate the "high-class" Brits for whom at times, the more esoteric the word sounds, the more right it must be.  (A little jazz saxophone ought to loosen 'em up.)

"Microscopist"

       Reading biologist E. O. Wilson's latest book called Creation,  a beautifullly detailed and eloquent siren call to save the life of the planet,  I come across the kind of word that drives me a little nuts.

       Now you and I know how to say the word "microscope."  But in discussing how to get a young person turned on to science by giving the kid a microscope, Wilson speaks of it having worked for himself, turning him into a microscopist like Anton Leeuwenhoek.  There it is.

       Neither the word "micro" nor the word "scope" appear in the word "microscopist," anyway in the saying of it.  It comes out [my-KRAHS-kuh-PIST].   This pronunciation  loses entire touch with the original root parts that give us to understand,  provide our bearing on what the word means!

          (Please see tomorrow's post.)

Lindstrom Got its Dots Back, Yeah!

       Here's a language story that reminds me of my native Minnesota and sounds just right to me!

       FM's "The World" keeps track of the "The World in Words" as part of its coverage and discovered that the little town of Lindstrom, Minnesota, had lost its "umlaut" over its "o" when the road signs leading into town were repainted.  People began to complain because the vast majority of the 4,442 citizens of Lindstrom are of Swedish inheritance, and that diacritical mark meant the town was pronounced LIND-strohm, not LIND-strm, and that's the way the townsfolk want it to be!

       Governor Mark Dayton finally sent out a fiat ordering the restoration of the two dots.  And his will was carried out.

       Umlauts are really of German origin and used in the German language, but Swedish too apparently.

(You can take a link to the story in print, audio and podcast by clicking here.)

"Trippingly on the Tongue"

       Please read this paragraph ALOUD from this morning's Los Angeles Times front page:


          After years of government investigations, Corinthian Colleges Inc. will shut down more than two dozen of its remaining schools, displacing more than 10,000 California students.  The move ends the turmoil at what was once one of the nation's largest for-profit college chains but presents fresh challenges to students, who now must seek transfers or federal loan forgiveness.


       At the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service, we often read articles over the air which we've not read completely, sometimes at all, in advance of going on air.  I stumbled when I came to four words in this paragraph--"what was once one"--.

       The writer might not realize this is a tough chain of words to put together and get right aloud; the broadcaster knows very well.  The sound that begins all four words is [w]; the vowel sound that follows it is [uh] as in "sun" in all four words; the closing consonant sounds all differ.  It's hard to get your mouth around all these successive single similar syllables successfully.

       HAVE FUN!  READ ALOUD.


      

"Inadvertently"

       What does it mean?  “Not turning to,” by root meaning anyway.

       Let’s see.  “Ad” means “to” from Latin and “vert” means “turn” as in “reverse” “turn back.”   Then “in” as a prefix  means “not” and so “not turning to.”

       Doing something “inadvertently” is to do it without intention, doing it without the mind turning [sufficiently] toward it.

When is sub-par English just fine?

   
       Yesterday, Dodgers manager Mattingly was talking generally in the direction of whether a hot-hitting, homer hitting rookie substitute infielder should replace a seasoned and popular third baseman in the lineup:

       "We know we have a long season, a long way to go.  You put things together during the winter knowing who your personnel [are] and how you think you see it working.  Sometimes, you stay with that course.  Other times, you have to get off that course.  We've played, how many games?  I just don't think we're willing to just go run in a whole 'nother thing."

       I don't mind at all that last sentence.  That 'nother is fine.  Maybe you'd rather see, "I just don't think we're willing to just go run in another whole thing."  More literate, but conversationally less spontaneous and "right on."   

"Stool Softeners"

       "Stool Softeners"?  I thought stools were supposed to be rigid so you didn't fall off  'em.

       But now that I look at "softener," I see that though the word has that "rigid" "t," there's no hard sound in the word "softener."

       Now that's appropriate.

"Working out, eh?"

       I got a peculiar, shy look from the bag boy at the grocery store. 

       I had started by asking him to put in as few items in each bag as posssible, not wanting too much weight per bag due to my upcoming hernia surgery.

      After paying the clerk, etc., I noticed three lightweight things going into my last bag, and that's when I said,  "Working out, eh?"  He was a well-built young man, no doubt in his late teens or early twenties, and I realized after he responded to me sort of shyly and scatteredly that he probably did "work out" and thought I was commenting on THAT rather than what I was.

       Words perform wonders.  They answer to several calls.   Any one you want to hear, you can take.

Earth Day (not to mention the other 364)

Reprise of Earth Day 2012 (2013, 2014) and why not?

(Click on 2013 above, and hear and see me recite the poem embedded in the previous four days' posts.)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 4

”Inspire” me, God, please, "breathe into" me, until I breathe my last...”expire.”

      BreathDay, Birthday, thank you for this EarthDay.  It is through our very animal senses here on earth that we become aware of the spiritual that lies beyond them...as the poet closes his sonnet:

      (now the ears of my ears awake and
      now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Our senses are the portal to the spiritual, to the Divine.   Not only a poem, Cummings has given us a Prayer of Gratitude for Creation.

Earthday. Birthday, Breathday: Part 3

       This “ultimate embarrassment” following on Creation will, for me, come to an end.  And I was reminded how soon that might be by a recent attack of asthma.  The strength of the attack and the care and medicines I received for it have me saying

       I thank you God for this breath, and
       I thank you God for this breath

Breath and spirit are the same:  both invisible, both palpable, both vital; one earthly, one Heavenly.  And “spirit” indeed means "breath."  Cummings recognizes the connection and the breathing:

       how should tasting touching seeing hearing
       breathing any--lifted from the no
       of all nothing--human merely being
       doubt unimaginable You?

             (Concluded tomorrow)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 2

       Cummings’ own poem notes the birthdays that continue consequent to Creation:

       (i who have died am alive again today,
       and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
       day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
       great happening illimitably earth)

Look, everything goes on being born, giving birth.  We, the earth itself carry on the work of Creation.

       Of course, what we humans should do with each living birthday to further the Creation, is the question.  As Abraham Joshua Heschel has phrased it, “Infinite responsibility without infinite wisdom and infinite power; is our ultimate embarrassment.”  (God in Search of Man, p. 285.)  But that’s our challenge.   (Continued tomorrow)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 1

       “I thank you, God” begins many a meditation and prayer.  It also begins a poem by E. E. Cummings:

       i thank You God for most this amazing
       day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
       and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
       which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Cummings looks at the earthly and finds a witness to the Heavenly.    

       Something in a Saturday Minyan service at our temple made me think such thoughts a handful of years ago, the relationship between the earthly and Heavenly:  Shabbat is a celebration in gratitude for Creation, the Birthday of All, including the earthly.  And therefore Shabbat is also a celebration for ourselves.  Without Creation we would not be here.  The Sabbath is a celebration of our birthday.

       The next morning, upon awakening, I heard myself saying, “I thank God for this next Creation day” because Creation continues, and as God created me, I create each of 6 days as well.  And I’d better do as good a job of it as I can!    (To Be Continued)

Cartooning Our Wayward Keyboarding

Click on strip to enlarge

How many of us have lapsed off to drreamland with a finger on a key?

Poetry is being celebrated this Poetry Month

       One place poetry is being celebrated this Poetry Month is in Tucson's online arts magazine called 3 Story Magazine.  This digital publication can be discovered right here.

       My daughter Elizabeth is one of those people and places in Tucson helping enrich the poetry scene according to the magazine.  Even her dad and his blog (this one) have garnered mentions in the piece.

       Elizabeth's enthusiasm for poetry (and some of her own poems are marvelous) is given credit for prompting the idea for the colorfully illustrated and tautly written text.

       Enjoy a look.

      

"Thank You so Much for Having Me"

       I must listen to a lot of radio talk interview shows.  And it's probably true that it's an odd, horny bent of mine.  But when a female guest is introduced and welcomed by a male radio interviewer, her response is almost always something like,"Thank you for having me."  And I tend to hear that exchange mainly with its sexual implications.

       If it's a male guest, those same words fly right by without my notice.

Thank you, Wind, and Gary Snyder

       as the crickets' soft autumn hum
       is to us
       so are we to the trees
       as are they
       to the rocks and the hills

       It must have been the sound of the wind burgeoning up strong at night here that brought me back these few lines of Gary Snyder.  And I'm thankful.

Apostrophes / Contractions / Cartoons

Please click on cartoon to enlarge

Brooke McEldowney captivates with language, drawing, and story on the web at this location.

"Be yourself; everything else is taken."

       All right, so I was captivated and tickled by this line seemingly "thrown in" to the dialog in the movie Connie and I saw tonight:  While We're Young.

       Such a worthwhile movie about love, and marriage, and having kids (or not), ambition, getting older; about making documentaries:  what's more creative and honest, attending and recording or throwing yourself and what you know into the mix and helping make it happen?

       Ben Stiller has serious Oscar aspirations, or at least I do for him.

       And Noah Baumbach has a movie-and-a-half in While We're Young, I believe.

       And that line again:  "Be yourself; everything else is taken."

       So there was humor and seriousness, and the former sneaks up on you while the latter is taking the foreground.  

 

Horoscoope with a Lift for Every Sign!

"Perfect"

 
        There's a Starbucks barista, whenever I order WHATEVER I order, he perkily bursts out, "Perfect!"   He's the first I heard do this.  I thought it was unique, surprising for sure, and lo and behold, I felt complimented I'd made that choice!!  (And it happens every time.)

        The other day, another restaurant,  my son and I ordering something at a counter,  I again received the ultimate praise.   How discerning can I BE?    How dumb can THIS be?   (Yet I felt, "I ordered the right thing!")

        Just today, called our tax accountant.   Secretary said he was with another client, could he call me back?  "Sure," I said.  "Perfect," she said.  Now, what state of perfection was it that I was able to receive a return call?   (Beginning to think this "perfect" thing is noisome.)    

"liquidambar" ("sweet gum")

        This day's high pollen levels where I live are contributed to by the liquidambar tree, also known as sweet gum.  We have one right down the street from us. 

       It's the resin from the tree that gives us amber after it goes into the earth, capturing plant or insect life into fossils as the resin hardens.  Some amber in sand around the Baltic Sea is 40 to 60 million years old.

       The sweet gum name designates the resin while it is still soft and chewy, but it is mildly bitter rather than sweet, only sweet in comparison with another resin that is extremely bitter!

       The leaves of the tree are multicolored in autumn and handsome, and the dried fruit pods that have given forth resins and sweet gum and finally seeds I have used as an element of  mobiles I've made.

CT; no, Scat Cat; no, CAT Scan

       I saw a CAT Scan today, also known as a CT Scan.  A cross sectional image of a part of the body taken by radiologists. 

       It started out with that intriguing way of saying it in 1975 when it was introduced and known as Computerized Axial Tomography; hence CAT Scan.  The later term meaning Computed Tomography may be the more common one now . . .

       But I'm glad the original still clings on because it's much more fun and memorable!  (I'm glad especially because there really was a reason for that "A" in the middle, not just a fill-in letter to make "CAT" as I had supposed.)

She Heard it Right & Rightly Reveled in that FULL SOUND!

You can find Bil & Jeff Keane's website here.

"Naida" is Way More than Nada

       A part-time care giver arrived at our house this afternoon.  Her first name is Naida (NIGH-duh). We asked her where that name came from.   She wasn't sure.

       Looking up online, it was from Greek, meaning "water-nymph."  Of course, on the Internet you always find other things.

       Connie, Naida, and I were amused to learn  another meaning of NAIDA: . . ."North Alabama Industrial Development Association"!


       I suddenly remembered Diana Nyad, famous swimmer, writer, broadcaster, speaker.  She's broken marathon swimming records.  She got the name Nyad when her mother re-married a Greek-Egyptian of that name and adopted Diana.  I mention this for two reasons: 1. the connection of names both referring to water-nymphs, Diana's most well-known area of achievement; and 2. that Diana's given name is an anagram of Naida.

The Age WE Live In::TEENAGERS Live In

click on cartoon strip to enlarge

See these two wonderful cartoonists' work at this site.

March 31st--a Day to Fine-Tune your Ear

       Dad would have loved Mark Swed's story in today's L.A. Times:  March 31st is "Orchestra Day" in Tokyo.   Everyone's out listening to music.

       The Suzuki method of teaching classical music to children post World War II is responsible, creating virtually a nation of music lovers and musicians.

        Almost no foreign musicians are sought for Tokyo's nine orchestras; "home-grown" fill the chairs.  Yet Japanese musicians help populate Europe's and America's orchestras.

       Dad, an 8th grade graduate who treasured education and got this kid finally to obtain a PhD, touted Suzuki's mass teaching methods, and he and Mom visited Japan to see the system at work, finally actually meeting Suzuki.
 
        Nine years ago the Japanese selected March 31 as "Orchestra Day."  Why?  The date in Japanese sounds very much like the sound for the word "ear"!

Passover: A Night of "Observing"

       First Seder.  They say Passover may be the most observed holiday in the Jewish calendar.  I think I know why.

       The Torah not only depicts the dramatic events of the Passover; it simultaneously commands the observance of the event as a Holy Day for the rest of the people's life on earth.


"It was a night of watching unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt; this same night is a night of watching unto the Lord for all the children of Israel throughout their generations..."


        In the Hebrew word she-moo-reem, "watching," the merged ideas watching, keeping, guarding, protecting, observing, as in "observance" of Passover. . . .From the Torah itself, we simply don't know how to separate the ancient event of the Passover from the commanded celebration of it!

"OH-oh"

       Me calling our tax accountant's office:  "I'm late on getting our taxes in.  My wife usually does it, but she had an accident and surgery, and unfortunately, I'm doing it this year."

       The receptionist had a wonderful response:  "OH-oh."

       I laughed that she was agreeing with me, but maybe more than that.  It was a little like "Oh, a man's doing it.  Look out.  This incompetence was not due only to inexperience but inherent incapacity."  The thought of that made me laugh louder.   It seemed she didn't have the slightest idea that she might be insulting a client; just acknowledging the obvious and well known.

       Oh, it's a different world these days and a healthier one.  The "OH-oh" was satire at its best.  And I had opened myself up for it with the "unfortunately."

"Innumerable Friend"

       Listening to a wonderful recording I made 33 years ago of a "last" car ride, my wife, teenage children, taking a French visiting student back to the airport after spending wonderful summer months with us as a guest.  It was a happy carful that made me smile with tears throughout its half hour length.

       On the other side of the cassette tape, I placed a recording of May Sarton reading her wonderful poem, "Innumerable Friend," which ends as follows:

                 Build an invisible bridge toward one person.
                 So the slow delicate process is begun,
                 The root of all relationship and then
                 Learn that this stranger has become all men,
                 Flows through the open heart as a great host
                 Of all the human, solitary, lost.
                 His longing streams through the conventions
                 Of diplomats and their meagre intentions,
                 Hunting for home like a great hungry wind.
                 He is the one, this our innumerable friend!

                 Let us forget these principalities, these powers;
                 We are theirs perhaps, but they are not ours.
                 Turn toward each other quietly and know
                 There are still bridges nations cannot overthrow.
                 And if we fight--if we must at the end--
                 These are the bridges we fight to defend.
       
       

Hey, Pal, Try This On for a Palindrome.

        Why do I find myself saying "Sex at Noon Taxes"?

        Do you suppose it's something to do with taxes and I'm doing them for the first time in my life almost, I think?

        Oh, but then I have it all backwards, don't I?  It's really "Sex at Noon Taxes"!

             [pal="back, again"; drome="run"; in Greek, that is]

Words that are "a little bit off"

       One notice of this today by yours truly.

       As I left home to do an errand, I told Connie I was going.  She asked where.  I paused for a couple long moments, couldn't quite think of the store's name, and finally said "Spindles."  Then added, "You know, the place that sells color cartridges for printers, etc."

       When I got there, what I saw above the entrance door was "Staples," which I didn't think was far enough off to feel bad about it; in fact, I felt pretty good.  Really, "staples" are almost as incidental to what they sell there as are "spindles."

     

How the powerful may imperiously use and prevent speech at the same time.

Sunday March 29, 2015

Read more: http://dilbert.com/#ixzz3VqXGg8bN

he does strange things with language

                                       
                                        r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

                                who

       a)s w(e loo)k
       upnowgath
                         PPEGORHRASS
                                                     eringint(o-
       aThe):l
                  eA
                      !p:
     S                                                                 a

                                      (r
       rIvInG                          .gRrEaPsPhOs)
                                                                     to
       rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ingly
       ,grasshopper;


                     e.e. cummings

It's so nice to get personal mail.

       We used to get personal mail a lot in our old-fashioned street mail box.  Now ads,  political pushes for money, and monetary requests from worthy organizations we sometimes wish we didn't support any longer stuff our box.

       And as is the way of the world, Connie and I now find ourselves avoiding our email boxes for exactly the same reason.

       And just when you get some snail mail in an envelope you think you may actually want to read--they have your first and last name spelled right in the address after all--you see what follows your name:

                              Or Current Resident

So much for your "Personal" correspondence.  Maybe you could invite them for a visit to talk about your "current residency". . . over coffee. 




      

Stuck in a Dern and pulled out a Dem

       I've commented on how "r"next to "n" in certain fonts can turn into "m" before your eyes.  So Laura Dern the actress becomes Laura "Dem."  And with some degree of probability, I'd say she is, but still you'd like a name to register as it is, without distortion.

       Today Yahoo's "Top News" on its Homepage included this item as I read it:

  
          "Tomatoes hit Oklahoma, Arkansas, 1 dead . . ."


Once you see the "r" and "n" merged into "m," it's easy for proofreader's error to scoot you right by the "d,"  having already seen it as a "t."

FootNOTE to Sunday March 15's "Language of Birds"

Still Spring, still e. e. cummings

       O sweet spontaneous
       earth how often have
       the
       doting

                  fingers of
       prurient philosophers pinched
       and
       poked

       thee
       , has the naughty thumb
       of science prodded
       thy

            beauty     . how
       often have religions taken
       thee upon their scraggy knees
       squeezing and

       buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
       gods
              (but
       true

       to the incomparable
       couch of death thy
       rhythmic
       lover

                thou answerest


       them only with

                                spring)

451 years ago today Shakespeare was born.

       But no one knew that day what glory his days on earth would bring.

       I remember doing "Is this a dagger that I see before me / The handle toward my hand?"  Macbeth, and not a half-bad job with it in college acting class.  I remember the greatest Hamlet of all time (I was sure) Lawrence Olivier's on film; and his Henry V, stunning!

       I taught the performance of the Bard's sonnets in class and sat in wonderment at them.

       I've performed both Hal and Falstaff in a reading from Henry IV, Part I, alas not that well, but the work lives on, justifiably, whether performers have killed it or made it soar.

       The sound, the rhythm, the characters, the human panoply arrayed before us, to relish, laugh at, be saddened by, and recognize, finally, as ourselves.
     
       HAPPY BIRTHDAY, you lengthily living baby born this day!

             (OK, I'M A MONTH OFF, BUT I WON'T RETRACT MY EARLY ENTHUSIASM FOR THE  BARD THIS FINE SPRING DAY.)

 

and it's spring

       Spring is like a perhaps hand
       (which comes carefully
       out of Nowhere)arranging
       a window,into which people look(while
       people stare
       arranging and changing placing
       carefully there a strange
       thing and a known thing here)and

       changing everything carefully

       spring is like a perhaps
       Hand in a window
       (carefully to
       and fro moving New and
       Old things,while
       people stare carefully
       moving a perhaps
       fraction of flower here placing
       an inch of air there)and

       without breaking anything.


                  e. e. cummings

 baby pomegranate shown by elder(perhaps)hand

      

ISIS, Issa, Issa

       A coincidence of names that were in the news today, all three of them close to one another in sound and spelling.  Two of them have venom associated with them; the third is soft-hearted, playful, and tender as a breeze.

      ISIS is every day on and in the news.  Pretty hard to miss.  But then Darrell Issa (pronounced ICE-uh) was also on the front page today.  Replaced as head of the House Oversight committee, even Republicans thought he used his position egotistically, smugly attacking President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, e.g., on the first day of "his" investigations using vehement, caustic rhetoric.

       So I couldn't help noticing that another prominent name was also on the front page, in fact the SAME name--Issa--(this time pronounced ISS-uh), the Japanese writer of Haiku: 

             I must turn over . . .                            Buddha on the hill
       Beware of local earthquakes           From your holy nose indeed
             Bedfellow cricket                                Hangs an icicle 



            

      

"Agreement" of Subject and Verb . . .Hmmmm

       I'm still hung up between wanting to say things the right way and realizing the normal course of language is change.

       Here's a TV HIGHLIGHT from the L.A. Times the other day:


       CRIMINAL MINDS  The fact that none of the victims of a Wisconsin serial killer have any apparent link to one another confounds the pattern-seeking Rossi . . .


       Knowing that "none" is short for "no one" and that it's the subject of the verb "have" troubles me. "None" is singular.  The plural "victims" is not the subject of the verb, sitting there as object of the preposition "of."  I think I'd change the verb to "has" and "one another" to "any other."  See what you think.

       But maybe I'm just a "pattern-seeking Rossi" confounded by natural changes toward comfortable expression.

       

"Troglodyte"

       Jerry Brown, our redoubtable governor for the second time in my life, held news conference on the steps of the national capitol and observed:  "About immigration reform the Republicans are at best troglodyte and at worst unChristian,"  prompting some KPCC-FM commentators this morning to note that Brown has to get away two or three thousand miles to make pithy, newsy comments he seldom seems to make in California.

       OK, your faithful language lover had to refamiliarize himself with the word troglodyte (having looked it up at least once before):  Merriam-Webster helps with Greek trogle, "hole, cave" and dyein "to enter."  So either "a member of a primitive people dwelling in caves" or "a person resembling a troglodyte (as in reclusive habits or outmoded or reactionary attitudes)."

Initials: First, Last, and Always

       How all the initials in the world seem here and ready for use to those ready to use them.

       Tomorrow our PT will be here and ready to work with Connie.  The RN might make it too or will at least receive a phone call from us to make a report.  She'll want to know about the BP and whether a BM occurred.

       A later doc appointment will require a CT Scan beforehand, which as mentioned earlier keeps me remembering CSPAN and thinking of CPAP.  And if anyone knows what some of them refer to, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

Therapy has a meaning and has two sides to it.

       Noble work of Connie in doing her PT today.  Concentration of efffort, in sitting, standing, exercising legs, working with a walker, under the tutelage of skilled physical therapist.

       Words, demonstations by therapist, "no"s, "yes"es, "goods," Connie copying, putting foot forward 'stead of backward, then catching the placement being requested, missing, "no," "that's it, yes"; resting between efforts just sitting, breathing, "in nose, out the mouth." "Stand, now we'll walk outside, down to the mailbox," negotiating the two stairs, exact movements for balance, safety, security.

       Therapist, to us all:  "She did good today!"

Joy in Writing?

       There's joy in writing, maybe more post-writing than beforehand or in the process.

       I was thinking this when I finished writing the "mocking birds" post yesterday.  How much it felt like the end of each day's writing of my Ph.D. dissertation: 

       Not really thinking you had it or had much of value to say and at the end of the day's writing, realizing you're much happier you wrote this than not having ventured it.  It was much better than you thought it was going to be!

      

The Language of Birds

       Our mocking bird(s) is raucous and ever-present these days, and no doubt even moreso since I added hearing aids.  The high pitches have returned, almost with a vengeance, and birds are definitely within that range.

       Of course, the mocking bird is multi-lingual; almost any sound other birds can make, he can make and probably make it better and more profusely.  The bird of imitation speaks lots of tongues fluently.  Do you?  Do I?

       And the mocking bird is not really mocking in the sense of making fun of or treating with derision, but imitating.  Today it seemed to me he's engaged in "international commerce" amongst not only birds of a feather but birds of all breeds.

       And yes there was some sense of  competition, outspeaking and maybe bluffing the other voices, playing "king of the hill" or "trees";  one-ups-manship and "power singing" were going on here!

         [Please visit this post now.] 

Just a Spoonful of Gall

       My phone company sent a letter: Thank you for changing your payment plan to online.  If you haven't made this change, call this number immediately, or your payment will be changed to online. 

       That's the substance and a fair share of the wording.

       I don't remember doing that, and I don't think I did.  I''m sure it's cheaper for them to have it online and probably cheaper and faster for me to do it that way.  But is this "force feeding" method--"Here, the spoon with the syrup is half way down your throat; if you don't want it, don't swallow RIGHT NOW!! or it's GOIN' DOWN."

       Is this nice?  Is it acceptable business practice?  Is it LEGAL to change your customer's method of payment without his or her requesting it?!    

'tsinaname?

       A care-giver temporarily in our home offered up her first name as "Maricor"--strange sounding to my ears and Connie's.  She said it was unusual and short for Maria Corazon, which she said was too long hence Maricor.  I guess one could come to love that name. 

       In any case, it's her name and her preference for identifying herself, but Connie and I both loved the sound of the full name, perhaps especially with "corazon" meaning "heart" in Spanish.  Maricor is actually from the Philippines.  Perhaps there are mixed feelings about a Spanish heritage by some Filipinos.

Rushin' Rant

       Seeking a certain word on the way home in traffic, I came up with several others on the way to finding it:

It's the rush that comes from new love, it's the rush of water over Niagara Falls,  it's the bum's rush, it's Rush Limbaugh, it's the rush of rain streaming down the sewer drain, it's the rush of wind through the trees, it's the Russhhh-un Dance by Tchaikovsky, it's the rush on college campuses of fraternities and sororities, it's the blush of the flush with the rush of blood to the cheeks . . . yes, but it's actually rush hour.  

C.O.P.D.

     One of those diseases that, no matter how many times I hear the name, I come up blank on what it stands for.  COPD.  Yes, I get the drift on what's being affected; it's somewhere North of asthma, but however accurate the descriptors for the ailment these initials signify, the words quite stubbornly get lost upon my memory.

       Yes,  the beginning might protrude through and unveil "Chronic Obstructive . . . " but then, the remainder of this high class Latinate/Greek body wracker will stay hidden.

       In fact, the whole COPD might as well be the Colorado Police Department as anything intelligible I can come up with.

       All right, finally, "Chronic Obstructive"--(if memory permits)--"Pulmonary Disorder."

       Or, as I gasped to the attendant medicos in emergency the night the flu felled me, "can't breathe." 

Getting moving again.

       Jogging, exercising, body on the move, blood working, tired, but things churning.  I need it.  Connie needs walking, legs moving.  She's returned from a health set back, but going through mail, sorting, throwing, attending, enjoying being home and ready to work for a healthy comeback. 

       Also grabbing the news and catching up on Downton Abby.

       No way to tell you how good it is to have her back where she belongs.

Thanks to friends who saved their BEST birthday cards for me!

       Good friends joined together to gift me and help celebrate an 85th birthday.

       The two birthday cards they sent from the two couples had front cover quotations that make you smile, and then drop your jaw a bit with the mind-opening imagination/inventiveness of the expressions:


       "Living on earth is expensive but it does include a free trip around the sun every year.  Happy Birthday."


       "Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that people who have the most live the longest!"
                                          (Larry Lorenzoni) 


 

Mark, riding Barabak, Lassoes a Word

       There are musical elements in language that sneak up on those who put words together which  may hardly, if at all, be noticed as having contributed to the flare of the writing.

       Consider this paragraph today by political writer Mark Z. Barabak of the L.A. Times about Bernie Sanders:


       "He is angry, righteous, waving his arms, hollering and contemplating a run for president, which is why 150 Iowans have turned out on a numbingly cold evening to hear Vermont's independent U.S. senator vent."

     
        I just know Mark Barabak didn't consciously choose, but unconsciously, what I'd call the perfect word to end his paragraph.  It's a strong verb, definitely apt,  but I'll betcha anything a little musical genie tapped Mark to find the word that lassoes the first two and the last two letters of "Vermont"!

      

"Nonchalant"

       Somehow the word was uttered in an appropriate context between my son and me last night, and I simply wondered where it came from.  No ready root came to our minds.

        A good time for the dictionary.  You're right if you thought a French origin is involved.  Chalant  meaning "warm" coming from Latin way back calere, "heated" or "hot."  So "not warm or heated."  And "cool" is even a synonym.

Pronunciation-itis--Wanting to get it right

       
       When outstanding LA Times classical music critic Mark Swed goes kind of crazy for a new performer, it's time to sit up and take notice.  Yesterday's Headline and sub-headline respectively?  "Get ready for Mirga mania," "Conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla wows in fiery L.A. Phil concert at Disney."

        By my count, the surname of the new female assistant conductor of the Phil appeared in the article 16 times.  My inner ear was going daft by about the 5th until I hypothesized a pronunciation something like GRAH-zin-ite TIE-la.

        The review didn't give the apparently correct pronunciation of this name we're all going to be contending with until its 16th and last printed appearance:  GRA-chin-tee-eh TEE-la.  The sound you hear is the tinkle of my imagined pronunciation shattering into pieces.

      

"Who(m) am I speaking to?"

       On the phone this morning, I needed to know the name of the party I was speaking to so I could ask for her when I called back later.  Which word would you choose, "who" or "whom"?

       I always convert such a question into a statement to "solve" it:  "I am speaking to who(m)."  I change the words to "he" and "him" and ask myself which sounds right.  If the answer is "him" as in this case, I know the "right" choice is "whom."

       But what did I actually say?  "Who am I speaking to?"

       For one thing, having two "m"s so close together ("am") is awkward to say.  For another, whatever the "rules" about objects of prepositions, common usage is, and should be, a great arbiter of what is permissible in language.   

"Familiar"

       Getting out on the road this morning in my car, at a nearby stop sign I pondered freeways vs. city streets, and either way, it occurred to me that what we like is the familiar, the paths and routes we know, have used often . . . the familiar.

       And I wondered why we use and choose the word "familiar" to characterize such cases.  Of course, for the associations the word contains.  What is usually most close to us, most long term and far back in immediate personal relationship to us?  Our family members, who else!  And what better word to suggest any long-term unquestioned relationship in which the other seems to know us just about as well as we know the other.

       It's "familiar."

Repetition Is a High Order Use of Language

       In traversing by car from Sylmar to my house, I'm moving on one freeway very quickly to another freeway and then going under two other freeways before arriving home.

       It's a new route to me, and because I'm not only switching freeways but have to avoid exiting onto two other freeways while remaining on the second, I find myself talking to myself about which lane I should be in at each stage for best and safest driving.

       Maybe it's my age, but I need this kind of self-talking to reenforce choosing the correct turns and eschewing the wrong ones.

       Sometimes one feels dumb or nutty trying to learn something new and repeating and even rehearsing it to oneself to set it in memory.

       But for me it's a high order use of LANGUAGE!

Distraught . . .

       When a patient is leaving a hospital, he or she goes through dis____?

       Funny how the other day the word I came up with was "dispatch."  Well, one is being dispatched into another state regarding one's health.  But I knew that wasn't the word I was looking for.

       The next thing I came up with was "disgorge."  Wait a minute.  Though that might be what's happening, someone's kind of being "spit out" of the system, that wasn't right either, and it sounded horrible.

       (Need I go back to my post connecting "gargle" and "gargoyle" as both coming from the same root meaning "throat"?  And "gorge" too.)

       But of course, of COURSE.  The word I was looking for was "discharge."  Why do I need to go round Robin Hood's Barn to get where I'm going??

Simple question: What do you call someone who has committed a misdemeanor?

       Mm-hmm . . . mm-hmmm . . . Clock's ticking . . . clock's ticking . . . all right, one who commits a misdemeanor is . . .  a misdemeanant.

       Sounds funny to me.  But host Warren Olney on KCRW's "To the Point" wouldn't use a word like that without knowing it was right.

       Olney was speaking with several law enforcement folks, including police chiefs and former police chiefs, and when they started using the word too, I knew it must be correct.

       Either that or Olney's erudition had them buffaloed, and they copied him, not wanting to appear dumb.  But the latter's not true; they sounded quite bright themselves.

       Nevertheless, if one who commits a felony is a felon, why isn't a person who commits a misdemeanor  . . . a misdemean? or as son David said, a misdemeano? ( Or, as I thought of later, misdemeanie.)

A Fortunate Shortening

       I had fun with KCRW's program called "Morning Becomes Eclectic," certainly a strange title for a daily music broadcast, but also appropriate.

       Yesterday I realized more fully why its host doesn't mind using its initials to refer to it:  "MBE." 

       The whole title is not only an unusual combination of words, but taking "eclectic" alone, the [k] sound of the three "c'"s  is produced in the back of the mouth, all other sounds in the word are produced in the front; hence a "mouthful" to say.  Try it aloud s-l-o-w-l-y to see.

       But the very shortened MBE flows swifter than a mountain stream:  Say "M" and your mouth ends with lips closed, "B" begins with lips closed and ends with the sound of "ee," which is the last initial.   

         

      

Film School--the Dream Lives On!

       Ah, the blacktop is so fresh and smooth, the white lines so sharp and contrasty, as you head into Hollywood on the Hollywood Freeway.

       Before you enter the famous capital of U.S. cinema, there's a road sign put up by the city, I believe, announcing that "New York Film Academy" is just off the next freeway exit.

       Couldn't help wondering what appeal that might have here in the heart of Hollywood, especially considering the two coasts' competition, if not enmity.

       Not much further along, just inside the actual Hollywood limits, another road sign displays itself:  "Los Angeles Film School."    If you didn't get sucked in by the first sign, maybe here you would find "the real thing."

       I'm presuming "Hollywood Film School" had already been taken.

       

It's His Industry, All Right

       Granted there's limited time for getting words about the Oscars accurately onto paper when the show happened Sunday eve, and the L.A. leading newspaper has to get oodles of quotes, photos, and observations into the public's hands only a few hours later.

       A little muff here and there is almost inevitable.  But it's nice when the uncaught mistake also reenforces the intentions of the statement.

     
       "Reese Witherspoon was all smiles as she stopped to chat on the red carpet.  The best actress nominee for "Wild," a film she also produced, said that at this stage in her career, her priorities have changed.  'It's about creating strong women's roles in his wonderful industry.'"


       "This," was no doubt intended, but women's relative lack of power in Hollywood was later a target during the ceremonies as well.      

"Home" has seldom meant so much.

       
       The most touching thing said tonight on the Academy Awards was during the acceptance speech for best lead actress in a film.

       Julianne Moore said several very good things including that people who have Alzheimer's Disease "need to be seen" so that "we can find a cure."  But I speak of what she said to her husband at the end:  "I thank you for giving me a home."

       It was very simple, but somehow replete with meaning.  What might have been questioned in several ways . . . "You're thanking him for giving you a house to live in?"  "Wait, he can't just give you a home, you have to contribute to that; don't you make a home together?" . . .

       All that seemed to dissolve in the openness, directness, and sense of fulfillment that enveloped it.

"Speaking in Tongues?"

       Daughter Elizabeth is in town.  This morning, I let her finish a text message she was sending before I would tell her what I wanted to.

       She pummeled on swiftly both thumbs flying, and it was a LO-O-O-N-N-G message.

       When she finally stopped, I found myself saying, "You have speaking thumbs."

       Her return to me, I think, surprised us both, and it was slick as they come.

       "Speaking in thumbs," she said.

"CPAP" Looks and Sounds a bit Soviet, Doesn't It?

       Son David called today, and I asked him, "Did you try on and use your C-SPAN"?

       Now I knew that was wrong, but it was something like that and C-SPAN was as close as I could come.  It's CPAP, a machine with a mask you wear which helps you breathe better and improve your sleep.

       David said, "Yes, C-SPAN, those politicians, that'll put you to sleep."

       And, he added, you can't help when you look at the letters themselves seeing  the word "CRAP," one short diagonal line different.

Want to Name a Lipstick Color?

       My wife asked me today to bring her a "red" lipstick, choose one at a drug store for her.

       I found a red bunch grouped together by a single manufacturer and proceeded to choose, trying each with just a touch on a finger or hand for looks.  The name "Tropical Coral" caught my eye (maybe my ear too, I just realized "coral" is embedded in "tropical"), and when I touched it to me, it looked like "Connie's color."

       Taking it to the register, I looked at what I had, and it said "Volcanic."  Confused, I went back and discovered someone put this one in the "Coral" column.  I tried the real "Tropical Coral" and didn't like it.

       So "Volcanic" it was.

       Connie approved!

       She should only be happy I didn't bring her "Flamboyant Flamingo."

     

      

Poet Philip Levine Dies at 87, 1928-2015

        Philip Levine was most noted for his poems about work and working class people who, he said, were hardly present in poetry.

        His obituary by Steve Chawkins in the L.A. Times today says that for years, Levine expressed bafflement over poetry without people in it:


       "There's a lot of snow, a moose walks across the field, the trees darken, the sun begins to set, and a window opens," Levine told a Paris Review interviewer in 1988.  "Maybe from a great distance you can see an old woman in a dark shawl carrying an unrecognizable bundle into the gathering gloom."

       When people do appear, he said, "their greatest terror is that they'll become like their parents and maybe do something dreadful, like furnish the house in knotty pine."


       That's a critique of certain poetry that reveals what room there was for poems of the kind Levine himself would and did create. 

Where the Caption and the Photo are a Perfect Match

       From the joyous L.A. Times series on the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  This part on YOLA, started not only by the Phil for Gustavo Dudamel but to help entice him to become the Phil conductor, makes you proud of the orchestra and of Los Angeles.

       This particular picture gives "in the flesh" the full meaning of the caption that underscores it.

Click on photo to enlarge

Where the Letters DO What the Word MEANS

Cover of UCLA EXTENSION Catalog

                                    Please click on image to enlarge.                  

LA Phil Musicians Speak Up in Images

       An orchestra's language is music, but the musicians have a way of using words to evoke the orchestra's character.

       Tympanist Joseph Pereira says, "The percussion is sort of the orchestra's backbone.  The strings are the beauty and the face, the brass is the soul and the woodwinds are the heart."

        David Howard recalls the "physical feeling" that attracted him to the clarinet when he was thirteen:  "I love the way the instrument takes air from me."  Howard says his bass clarinet is "more of a character actor than a leading man."

         Principal bass player Christopher Hanulik says "The job of the bass section is to lay down a sound as plush as a carpet for the rest of the orchestra to float upon."    

        

      

"Scampi"

       Made a very good shrimp scampi dinner by Bertolli this evening (from an aluminum bag, with very nice sauce) but wondered what "scampi" meant.  Connie thought it was "garlic."

       Not too  clear from different sources, but I like etymology online dictionary by Douglas Harper's origin as the plural of Italian scampo meaning "prawn," but ultimately from Greek kampe "a bending, a winding," from the Proto-Indo European root kamp- "to bend."

       Those prawns, those shrimp, those scampi, they do bend!

"Wolfgang"

       Of course, most of us have come across the name "Wolfgang," but it hasn't before occurred to me to wonder what it meant, German, but . . .

       In a piece in the N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine for February 8, 2015 by Alex Hoyt, a weekly "last words" page under the rubric Lives, Hoyt wonders about a strange and interesting uncle of his who passed away named "Wolfgang."

       As Hoyt comes to know more about his mysterious uncle, he writes "the more appropriate the name Wolfgang seems--his solitude; his status as our family's Mozartian genius; his lupine, booze-fueled midnight mood swings."

       The word means "wolf" "going."

       It is sometimes chosen by English speakers to honor the musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  It is not among the 1000 most commonly chosen names for a boy.

"____ en Costa Rica"

       My underwear says on it "Hecho en Costa Rica."  I knew right away that it should be pronounced [ETCH-o].

       Someone asks, "How did you know?"

       Because in Spanish the "h" is Shilent!


                         [Somehow I think this post was influenced by Mutts                                    the comic strip.]

End-of-the-Week Rumination: Brevity, Abbreviation, Even Initials Only

       The previous week reveals me not coming close to my usual limit of 135 words per post.

       More things to do around house with assuming some obligations Connie typically takes greater part in:  shopping, meal making, cleaning up, picking up.  The back is holding her back with healing the first order of the day.  I'm glad to be doing these things, but shorter takes, I suppose, on the blog, for now, seem to be the result.

       Shorter may be better; and shortest may be best.  Look over the past week.

What's BLT to you?

       To me BLT is a "bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich."

       To my wife Connie after yesterday's mnemonic lesson to help her painful back, BLT means NO "Bending, Lifting, Twisting."

       Thanks, physical therapist Randy, for those letters to heal-by.   

Don't ask . . . don't tell.

       Did you know that the word "alumni" is just one letter short of . . . "albumin"?

       If you're caught by words, this kind of observation can happen to YOU.

       .

     
       

As I remembered it . . . (Yesterday's Haiku)

                         Hokushi's Haiku
                        (my remembering)

                      Moon on the pine tree
                   I hang it . . . and take it off
                      And I smile each time


                           Hokushi's Haiku
                      (translation found online)

                       The moon is on the pine:
                   I keep hanging it--taking it off
                        and gazing each time.

My Remembering of Hokushi's Haiku

Prf and Phb: Optional surgeries?

       Prefrontal lobotomy and  Phlebotomy.   It's probably a good idea to figure out the difference between these two before you have either one done.  

       
      

What is the password for your ID; no wait!

       Codes and passwords and ID numbers.  We have such a pile of them sitting before us at the computer that, having just gone through it to find more info online about a bill to us, I had to pour through every 3"x5" scrap of note paper and STILL couldn't find it---the needed one.

       "Aw, heck, let's wait till the bill comes in the mail," I say to Connie; she agrees.

       

XLIX

       OK, so our great local sportswriter beat me to it in text.

       "Super Bowl XLIX--the game whose Roman numerals make it sound like a laxative--" Bill Plaschke wrote in The Times today about the Big Game.

       Yessss.

       But isn't it ridiculous?  These pretentious Roman Numerals that must be summoned each year, and refigured--let's see, "L" is 50 and since the "X," which is 10 is before the L, that means take 10 away--so 40--and then X with an "I" which is one before it, takes away one, leaving 9:  49.  

       It's like the game is carved in stone, which, I suppose isn't too different after all from Gwyneth Lewis's Welsh/English poem on Friday seemingly carved in stone or brass in the side of a building to celebrate two great languages.  

End-of-the-Week Ruminations: Living with Words and Wonder

       I guess that's it.  Just finding these, words and wonder and, yes, even worry all clung together in life, bound around your daily existence and the new things you find each day as well, such as the doc "Language Matters," opening out and folding in the world, and there you are surprisingly bundled right along with it.